High court rejects hunting ban challenge

Pro-hunting campaigners in the high court today lost a second bid to challenge the hunting ban.

The ban, introduced by the 2004 Hunting Act, prohibits deer-hunting and hare-coursing with dogs in England and Wales, as well as foxhunting. Two senior judges today ruled the campaigners did not have a case for a judicial review of the ban.

Dismissing the challenge, Lord Justice May and Mr Justice Moses ruled the Act had "a legitimate aim", was "necessary in a democratic society" and "satisfies the test of proportionality".

At a recent hearing, the Countryside Alliance branded the legislation "a sectarian measure", which they said breached the European convention on human rights.

Alliance lawyers also argued the ban was ruining the livelihoods of thousands who earned their living from hunting, both in the UK and Europe, and infringed EU trading and employment laws.

Welcoming the court's ruling, the League Against Cruel Sports said: "Foxhunting in Britain is now dead - it is time that its supporters accepted that."

The League's chairman and leading barrister John Cooper said: "We welcome this recognition that there is no human right to be cruel.

"The Hunting Act is a popular act, the ban is being enforced and, most importantly, animals are no longer able to be abused in the name of this barbaric bloodsport.

"This is a resounding defeat for the hunters, who need to move forward and accept the democratic will of parliament and the majority of the general public, and learn to take no for an answer."

Today's defeat comes as the pro-hunt campaigners wait for the House of Lords to give a final ruling in the domestic courts on whether their first challenge to the ban has succeeded after being rejected by the high court and court of appeal.

In that challenge, the Countryside Alliance argues that the Hunting Act was constitutionally flawed.

In today's case, Richard Gordon QC, appearing for the pro-hunters, described the ban as "divisive".

Many members of the House of Commons who voted for it did so "on doctrinal grounds", he said at the recent hearing which led to today's judgment.

But if one took away "the strength of feeling from the furore", a total ban could not be justified.

Richard Lissack QC, who was appearing with Mr Gordon for the Countryside Alliance, described the "devastation" to rural communities that the ban was likely to cause and was already causing.

Mr Lissack said the case was being "watched with interest by a public far from this court" from both within and without the hunting community and the world should know the truth.

He described "the deep sense of loss and dismay" felt by those who hunted and made their living from the ancient sport.

He said: "All feel themselves victims of the ban which, by the most bitter irony, delivers restriction of human activity without gain in terms of animal welfare."

But the judges rejected all the arguments and dismissed the challenge.

John Jackson, chairman of the Countryside Alliance, indicated later that the legal battle would continue.

He said: "The judges have accepted that there is interference with some of the claimants' rights, and that the Hunting Act will have a substantial general adverse effect on the lives of many in the rural community.

"However, the court, ignoring events in the Commons and the Lords, appears to have proceeded on the assumption that parliament had a legitimate aim and has itself then speculated on what that may have been.

"Whether the court is right to have proceeded in this way is plainly a controversial question. "We have been granted leave to take this case to the court of appeal."